Adios Gato

Monday:
We made pancakes and ate them. :) and we played games and taught the gospel to Danville investigators and less active members!

We were so cold!

Tuesday:
This day we saw our lovely friends D and A! They were so cute. They loved the Plan of Salvation doctrine and to ask questions, especially about the Word of Wisdom. It was really something cool to be able to testify so plainly about the reasons for the Word of Wisdom, but especially for me to be able to say "God created our bodies and He loves us very much, so He knows how to best take care of the bodies and He has given us these commandments" or something along those lines. I really have been gaining a strong testimony of the commandments! God doesn't do anything for Himself. Even when Jesus says "Come follow me" or other things like "I am your rock" or something, it's not for His pride! It's for us! He knows that we need to have a sure and sturdy foundation on something that will bring us happiness. If we are relying on the wisdom of men or the crutch of drugs/alcohol/etc., we are sure to fail. Actually if I may go on a small tangent, Sister Moore and I talked about this today. There are a few different reasons that the Lord has called 18/19 year old youth to go preach and teach his word. The main thing we talked about is so that we can rely on the Lord, so that we can succeed. Does that make sense? Like, if we had years and years of knowledge and experience, we would be less moldable. We are babies as far as knowledge of the scriptures and histories go. But as we rely on the Lord and do our part, that is how we see success in the people we are teaching. We have to be naive enough to NEED the Lord. 2 Nephi 9:29 But to be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God. 

Drill #1

We were wet and cold.

Also we had a small tornado watch that was funny because it was crazy windy and rainy all morning but as soon as they texted us to go back inside, the weather calmed down. Better safe than sorry! After the drill we went to eat at the B's house and saw her new puppy, Lois Lane, again. I just think it's so funny and cute that her dog's name is Lois-so it's totally blog worthy! :)

Tuesday was a good day.

Drill #2

Wednesday:
Well Sister Moore and I only have so much music, okay? For the majority of the day we listened to "Glorious" by our good friend David Archuleta. It really never gets old. 

We spent the day visiting some less-active families and trying to get ahold of people. A lot of people are so busy this time of year! The holidays are a crazy season, but the work will go forth boldly and nobly - even during the holidays! :) It's a good time to be alive. We also had some people come to the Book of Mormon study class! It was good, we talked about Isaiah a little. It's still confusing, even as a missionary. Haha! When you do figure it out, though, it makes sense and it's like eating a delicious thick chocolate brownie and then eating another and another. It was cool to remember that Isaiah was to Nephi as Joseph Smith is to us, kind of (as far as simplicity in understanding). Don't skip over Isaiah! His writings wouldn't be in the scriptures MORE THAN ONCE if they weren't important! Even if you don't understand it, read it. :)

Thursday: 
We had our Zone Meeting/Specialized!! It was great, we had some pretty good instruction. I really loved what Sister Wakolo had to say. She mentioned having two circles, one is control and one is concerns. As missionaries, we should strive to focus and worry more about things in the control circle so our concern circle will shrink. The concerns will never go away. We will always (for most people) feel a sense of worry for our family, we will always have to worry about miles and allotted money and all those things, but as we focus on the things we can control-and thereby CHANGE or IMPROVE-our concern circle will shrink and our faith in Christ will grow. Again it's kind of like I said for Monday, as we focus on the things we can improve and do so while relying on the the Lord, we will be happier! (***family***You should try this. Make a list of your major things you can control; food intake, going to church, obedience to the law, keeping the commandments, exercise, happiness/emotions, clothing, following the spirit, etc. and make a list of concerns that are not in your control; like mean people, the crazy dog, kids' choices, weather, etc. pray and think about ways you can rely on the Lord to make your concern circle smaller and to ask for help with the control list.) I also learned at the meeting that I need to be happier when I share the message of the Restoration and the Plan of Happiness, I need to be better at asking inspired questions, and I need to work on giving more specific and direct blessings to people who promise to keep commandments/commitments. Also I need to testify more. :)

For blitz (if you don't remember, blitz is what they do at specialized where they mix up all the people in the zone and go out tracting in the area to help the area grow a little better) we were all assigned less-active families. Being in the Spanish group, it was me and Hna. Lewis, and Hna. Moore with Hna. Ponce. It was so fun! Unfortunately, we were unable to find the place but it's all okay because God had a different plan! We drove around for a while and decided that because we couldn't find it, we would pick and street and start knocking.
First house we went to, there was a family of at least 6 who were all together and so so super open about learning more and having faith and they promised they would read and pray together. It was really cool and we felt the spirit really strongly! I like blitz. I like the Lord's plans. When we got back, there was this heavenly meal of Hawaiian haystacks!!!! :) Muy rico. And we also were instructed for a few minutes by President Wakolo (before the blitz we had the Zone leaders and both sets of Sister Training Leaders who gave great instruction too). He taught us about being disciples of Christ. We are called as full-time missionaries and, at least the hope is, that we leave as
disciples of Christ. He talked a lot about obedience and fearing God more than man or other missionaries! Pretty cool. :)

Friday: 

So usually on Friday's we will go to lunch at the T's house. Sadly they had to cancel on us again but it was all actually totally fine because we had an earthquake drill! We went to our emergency contact's home and just hung out for a while. After, we headed to Ola. As we were trying to keep ourselves alive with all of the crazy dogs and trying to contact some people in the apartments, this kind man told us that the people we wanted to see weren't home. He was just sitting out on his stairs, basically asking to learn about the restoration. :) He is a very humble and very faithful man who asked for a Book of Mormon. After introducing it and talking a little, we went on our way. As we drove away, we saw him start to read it!! Maybe some prayers for this man. Afterwards, we went to the C' home and had some yummy homemade chili that was great and we taught the kids a little bit about the love of God, especially of Jesus Christ and baptism. :)



Saturday: 

Katie 

 


GAME NIGHT!!! We had a really fun game night with the Brooksby's, the K family, and the one and only Katie Shelton!!!!!! (I ❤️❤️❤️ Katie. She is so awesome. She does a lot for the missionaries and I am so grateful for her and her testimony and incredibly sweet spirit. She's truly one of a kind!!!) The K's brought some Mormon word game. It's that game where the words are all weird and you have to say them quickly to understand the words. Know what I'm sayin? So it was that but Mormon version! So fun! :) and we played some "Liar" and checkers and ate some yummy yummy pumpkin pie! Also Sister Moore lost her wallet as we went to the store to buy some card games. We didn't even know it was gone until she wanted to buy a salad from Subway! (Yes I am so so so grateful for the Subway gift card.) Anyway, we went to the Dollar General and asked the ladies there and one of them said she knew who had it! So we met the lady at some parking lot and she found it and it was great. I am so grateful for the good hearts of the Danville people. Small towns 👍



Sunday: 
There are no words. But, lemme try these.: 
We were able to see a few of our less-active members we are working with at the church today! It was SUPER great to see some of them! Some of them I rarely get to see. Anyway, the talks were really great (on gratitude and stuff) but my lesson, oh man I was SO SO nervous!  I was freezing in that room, BUT we had a good discussion and a few comments and we were even out of time before finishing everything. My testimony of preparation has grown a lot! I was asked to teach about the gathering of Israel, which, if you know me as well as my sweet mother does, you know this subject blows my mind to pieces - there are just so many little details! I was so nervous all week for it because it's for gospel essentials which is really the missionaries and a few investigators and a few recent converts!! I couldn't figure out why the Lord would have these people learn about such a deep and confusing topic. So, I prayed... A lot. And only through the Spirit was I able to have my own questions (like, 3 or 4 years worth) answered and I was able to understand which aspects the new people needed to know. 

And, okay. Here it is.
😿!!
This whole week our car has been smelling like straight up cat pee (sorry for the language but seriously, so so gross) and we were like "what in the world!?  We don't have any rotting food" and these things. But, today as Sister Moore was leaving our apartment, a small cat comes tumbling out from under the car. EW OH MY HEAVENS I CANNOT GET THIS IMAGE OUT OF MY HEAD. It was moving and then -okay sorry it's so gory- blood came squirting out and now there's blood on the car and all over the parking lot. Sorry. Okay. The gross part is over. We called people for help because there was no way we were going over to move the cat, nor were we about do drive back over it!! What if it were alive?!?! Anyway, yeah it was totally dead and this nice neighbor guy came up and put Gato in a bag and tossed him. So, we gave the guy some of our cookies. It was so sad!!! I was sick to my stomach and Sister Moore was repulsed. Adios gato. (I have been making hilarious cat jokes all night though, on the bright side..)

The Church is true. So so true. The prophets are real and they really speak from God. I refer you to a talk from I think President Benson from a BYU devotional called the 14 fundamentals of following the prophet (or something.) It's so so good. AAAAnd there you have it! That was my
week!

Hermana Macfarlane